Technology + Online + Industry + Partnerships
Putting Their Game Faces On
Microsoft Research and NYU set out to find hard proof
of the efficacy of gaming in education.
CAN GAMING TRULY IMPROVE EDUCATION?
Microsoft Research and New York University have teamed up to find
the answer to that question, announced Craig
Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for
Microsoft, during an Oct. 7 visit to NYU. The
two organizations have partnered with a number
of New York-based universities to launch the
Games for Learning Institute (G4LI), a research
project that aims to provide scientific evidence
showing that computer games can be successful
learning tools.
“While educational games are commonplace,
little is known about how, why, or even if they
are effective,” said John Nordlinger, senior
research manager for Microsoft Research's
gaming efforts, in a statement. According to
Nordlinger, the institute “will address these
questions from a multidisciplinary angle,
exploring what makes certain games compelling
and playable, and what elements make them
effective, providing critically important information
to researchers, game developers, and
educators to support a new era of using games
for educational purposes.”
Microsoft Research, NYU, and their university
partners have invested a combined $3 million to
fund the G4LI for its first three years. The institute
will be located at NYU and directed by Ken
Perlin, professor of computer science
for NYU's Courant Institute of
Mathematical Sciences and founding
director of the Media Research Laboratory
at NYU. Jan Plass, associate
professor of educational communication
and technology at NYU's
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education,
and Human Development,
will serve as Perlin's co-director.
In its first phase, the G4LI will
focus on evaluating computer and
video games as potential learning
tools in the areas of science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics
for students in grades 6 through 8.
The institute chose to focus on
middle school because it is “a critical
stage for students, a time when many
are introduced to advanced math and
science concepts,” said Perlin in a statement.
Eventually, the institute aims to expand its
research to cover all of K-12.
The G4LI has already begun preliminary
research, and plans to evaluate game prototypes,
introduce them to a network of 19
New York City schools, and track the results.
Scientific results from the institute's research
will be shared with educators, game developers,
and other researchers.
For more information and updates on the
G4LI, visit here.
FREE COURSES PROMOTE DATA QUALITY IN SCHOOLS
THE US DEPARTMENT of Education's
National Forum on Education
Statistics recently released the second
of its two online courses aimed
at improving the quality and management
of data in K-12 schools.
The new course, Improving
Education Data Part 2-- Coordinating
Data Quality, focuses on
the role of data coordinators in
planning quality data initiatives
for local education agencies. The
eight lessons that comprise the
course include information on
data coordinator responsibilities,
data flow and cycles, data entry,
creation and use of a data dictionary,
data calendar development,
data errors, validation and audit
of data, and communication.
Improving Education Data Part
1-- Creating a Foundation, the
first of the two courses, was
released this past spring. Its four
lessons center on creating a
culture for producing quality
data, and include topics such as
assessing your local education
agency's data quality, classifying
education data, and examining
security and confidentiality.
The forum developed both courses
in cooperation with three nonprofits
dedicated to educational issues:
the Schools Interoperability Framework
Association,
the Council of Chief State School
Officers, and the Central Susquehanna Intermediate
Unit. The free
courses are available here.
:: Awards and Contests
LEFT TO RIGHT: Bill Goodwyn,
president, Discovery Education;
Melissa Rey, America's Top Young
Scientist; Edward Evans,
America's
Top Science Teacher; Alex Cirillo,
vice president,
community affairs
and 3M Foundation, 3M.
YOUNG SCIENTIST WINNERS
ANNOUNCED. Discovery Education and 3M recently announced the
winners of their Young Scientist Challenge, one of the country's
leading science competitions for middle
school students and their science teachers.
Melissa Rey, from Chesterfield, MO,
was selected as the grand-prize winner
of the student competition, earning the
title of America's Top Young Scientist
and $50,000 in US savings bonds.
Edward Evans, from Welch, WV, was
named America's Top Science Teacher,
winning $5,000 in cash, a Discovery
Education multimedia service suite, and
a number of 3M products.
MA DISTRICT HONORED FOR COST
AND ENERGY SAVINGS. Energy
Education,
a national energy conservation company,
has awarded Taunton Public Schools (MA) with its Energy Excellence Award.
The district earned the honor by achieving
more than $1 million in cost savings
in less than three years since forming an
alliance with the company. Energy
Education, which has worked with more
than 900 educational organizations
across the US, trained Taunton personnel
on how to reduce energy consumption,
an effort that saved the district money and
ultimately resulted in a bigger district
budget for educational resources.
:: Industry News
FREE E-RATE CALENDAR AVAILABLE.
To help schools keep up with fluctuating
E-Rate deadlines, Funds for Learning
(www.fundsforlearning.com), an
E-Rate compliance services firm,
is offering a free online E-Rate
calendar. The calendar notes
events and deadlines related to
the federal E-Rate program, and
can be integrated with Google,
Mac, and Windows calendar
applications. To subscribe to the
Funds for Learning E-Rate calendar,
visit here.
SCIENTIFIC LEARNING JOINS
LITERACY PROJECT. Scientific
Learning, an
educational software company,
announced it has joined Google's
Literacy Project, an academic
resource for teachers and literacy
organizations. The project's website
includes books, scholarly articles, videos,
projects, blogs, groups, and a customized
search engine to find literacy-related documents
on the web. Scientific Learning
will donate to the project its BrainApps
brain fitness exercises for K-12 students,
videos, and lesson plans. The project's
other partners include LitCam and UNESCO's Institute for
Lifelong Learning.
THINKRONIZE RELEASES SAFE
SEARCH INDEX. Thinkronize has released its
annual Top 100 Educational Safe Search
Index to recognize school districts that
kept student internet searches safe during
the 2007-2008 school year. The districts
were ranked according to the number of
safe searches their students performed on
Thinkronize's NetTrekker d.i. educational search tool,
and were broken down by district size. For
the second straight year, Forsyth County
Schools in Georgia was ranked the top
large-sized district, with more than 7
million safe searches. Missouri's Blue
Springs School District topped the
midsized districts with 2,615,184 safe
searches, while DuPage County School
District in Illinois lead the small-sized
districts with 629,401 safe searches. The
winners received prize packages including
professional development workshops and
premium NetTrekker d.i. products.
LODESTAR PARTNERS WITH
EFOLIOWORLD. LodeStar Learning has
announced a new deal with eFolioWorld. The company
will integrate its electronic-learning
authoring suite, LodeStar, with the
eFolioWorld electronic portfolio system, a
hosted portfolio system developed jointly
by ed tech provider Avenet Web Solutions and the Minnesota State
Colleges and Universities System. The
LodeStar authoring suite is designed to
allow both K-12 and postsecondary
educators to create web-based educational
activities that can be accessed through
a learning management system or via
external sites. Through the new partnership,
these tools have been reconfigured
so that they can be integrated within the
eFolioWorld environment.
FETC 2009 REGISTRATION OPEN.
Educators can now register to attend
FETC 2009. The ed tech
conference, one of the nation's largest,
will run Jan. 21-24 at the Orange County
Convention Center in Orlando, FL, and
will feature workshops and exhibits from
leaders in education technology. See the
FETC website and the brochure included
with this issue for more information.